In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

229 k 26 The Cam­ paign for Mar­ riage Equal­ ity A Dis­ sent­ ing View In the ­ twenty-first cen­ tury, the ex­ clu­ sion of ­ same-sex cou­ ples from the legal right to marry has ­ eclipsed all other gay and les­ bian is­ sues. It makes head­ lines reg­ u­ larly, fig­ ures in major ways in electo­ ral pol­ i­ tics, and calls forth emo­ tional ap­ peals for equal­ ity. More than any other LGBT issue, it has elic­ ited the en­ thu­ sias­ tic sup­ port of lib­ eral and pro­ gres­ sive hetero­ sex­ u­ als and of ­ younger ­ adults ­ across the po­ lit­ i­ cal spec­ trum. From the be­ gin­ ning of the cam­ paign for mar­ riage equal­ ity, I have had deep res­ er­ va­ tions about it. It is not that I am ­ against mar­ riage equal­ ity, that I think the right to legal mar­ riage ­ should be de­ nied. But the way the cam­ paign has­ evolved, the rhet­ o­ ric and ar­ gu­ ments that sup­ port­ ers often em­ ploy, and the im­ pact that pri­ o­ ri­ tiz­ ing mar­ riage has had on other press­ ing is­ sues have all ­ deeply dis­ turbed me. This essay, which grows out of a num­ ber of talks and two ear­ lier­ shorter ­ pieces, at­ tempts to pull all my con­ cerns to­ gether. k This essay ex­ pands upon two ear­ lier es­ says: “The Mar­ riage Fight Is Set­ ting Us Back,” Gay and Les­ bian Re­ view World­ wide 13, no. 6 (No­ vem­ ber–De­ cem­ ber 2006): 10–11, and “Will the­ Courts Set Us Free?: Re­ flec­ tions on the Cam­ paign for ­ Same-Sex Mar­ riage,” in The Pol­ i­ tics of ­ Same-Sex Mar­ riage, ed. Craig Rim­ mer­ man and Clyde Wil­ cox (Chi­ cago: Uni­ ver­ sity of Chi­ cago Press, 2007), 39–64. Part IV: History’s Lessons 230 May 1993. The Ha­ waii State Su­ preme Court in­ structed one of its trial­ judges to re­ con­ sider a case in­ volv­ ing ­ same-sex mar­ riage. Call­ ing mar­ riage “a basic civil right,” the jus­ tices sug­ gested that the pro­ hi­ bi­ tion ­ against is­ su­ ing li­ censes to ­ same-sex cou­ ples vi­ o­ lated state con­ sti­ tu­ tional bans ­ against­ gender-based dis­ crim­ i­ na­ tion. ­ William Ru­ bin­ stein, at that time the di­ rec­ tor of the ­ American Civil Lib­ er­ ties ­ Union’s gay ­ rights pro­ ject, ­ called the rul­ ing “a major break­ through.”1 This was the first time in US his­ tory that a court came even re­ motely close to ap­ prov­ ing “gay mar­ riages,” and it ­ cracked open a na­ tion­ wide de­ bate that, two ­ decades later, in 2013, con­ tin­ ues. De­ spite many ­ twists, turns, and re­ ver­ sals, one can rea­ son­ ably draw a line con­ nect­ ing this ju­ di­ cial in­ struc­ tion in Ha­ waii to the first ­ same-sex mar­ riages in Mas­ sa­ chu­ setts, in May 2004, the raft of pro­ hi­ bi­ tion­ ist meas­ ures that ­ graced many state bal­ lots that No­ vem­ ber, the bat­ tle over Prop­ o­ si­ tion 8 in Cal­ i­ for­ nia in 2008, Pres­ i­ dent Ba­ rack ­ Obama’s endorse­ ment of mar­ riage for ­ same-sex cou­ ples in 2012, and, most re­ cent, two Su­ preme Court de­ ci­ sions that sup­ ported mar­ riage equal­ ity. By any logic, the Ha­ waii de­ ci­ sion ought to have ­ thrilled me. I study so­ cial move­ ments. I think daily about col­ lec­ tive ef­ forts to ­ achieve jus­ tice and about how dis­ en­ fran­ chised ­ groups act to re­ dress their grie­ vances. In par­ tic­ u­ lar, I have stud­ ied the gay and les­ bian move­ ment for al­ most four­ decades and at many ­ points along the way have been not ­ merely an ob­ server but an ac­ tive par­ tic­ i­ pant in the cause. What could be more ex­ hil­ ar­ at­ ing than to wit­ ness his­ tory being made, to watch a cam­ paign de­ velop for some­ thing as fun­ da­ men­ tal as mar­ riage? In­ stead, from the mo­ ment that the Ha­ waii ­ courts put the mar­ riage issue...

Share